Patent attributes
A single piece optic for coupling the output of a diode laser array into an optical fiber array is provided. The coupling optic has a planar back surface which, during use with a diode laser array, is positioned substantially parallel to the front face of the laser array. The coupling optic is fabricated from a single substrate and is comprised of a plurality of optical elements. Depending upon the technique used to fabricate the optical elements, the individual optical elements may be trapezoidally-shaped or rectangularly-shaped. The front surface of each optical element is tilted, thus preventing reflected laser radiation from resonating within the diode laser's emitters. Preferably the wedge angle for the tilted front surface is greater than 2 mrad, thus accomplishing the goal of limiting feedback into the emitters, and less than 4 mrad, thus reducing beam steering. Additionally each optical element is shaped to reduce the divergence of the emitters in the fast axis, thus allowing the output from each emitter to be effectively coupled into the corresponding optical fiber.
